Critical Thinking: The Skill AI Cannot Replace in Testing - Tara Walton

So I love to look at AI through the lens of it's toxically positive, right? Everything you say to it will go, You're right. That's amazing! Thank you for pointing that out.

Even if YOU are dead wrong If you can't explain people what your doing or went wrong then... you kind of stand still there even though best person in world finding issues. One of the things that I tell people to cut their QA teams is, That means your users are first line of defense. Because they will find bugs!

I accidentally became a QA. Turns out i'm really good at finding those weird cases like well what happens if I do hit enter fifty times? Oops...I broke the database.

Welcome to Software Testing Unleashed, the podcast for testers, test automation engineers quality engineers and developers who want create great-quality software. My name is Richie. I'm a software Quality Coach keynote speaker and author. my guest today is Tara Walton.

she works in developer relations And is passionate about quality and testing. we talked About skills that a tester needs Today communication about perspective, courage thinking outside the box critical thinking and how we can use AI nowadays for our job. And now enjoy episode! Why?

Thank you so much for having me, Richard. I'm so excited to be here today! Yeah it's great. we had a long story the last year...

I invited you and then we talked..and then i shifted our meeting up down everywhere. It was crazy but now finally we're here. And yeah holidays adventures But we made it.

We're here and I'm so excited to finally get to be her! Yeah, yeah... And also just noticed that we see each other on Eurostar this year. So our first in-person meeting there.

It'll be so exciting to find the..I love meeting people That i know Finally In person for their first time. Its like a whole new experience. You can get that moment of oh you are taller than I thought.

And three D. Yes, that'll be so exciting. I can't wait to see you and everybody else. it's gonna Be there.

um i've heard wonderful things about the program and It's one of my favorite conferences So i'm super stoked To go. Yeah, great. So let's get into some topics today. I think we can talk about a lot of things but one thing that comes to my mind at first when what we talked about up front and so is What do you need?

What Do You Think A Tester Needs Today As The Most Important Skill? Well i think there Is A Big Shift Particularly Right Now. We've got these lovely new tools coming out and people shifting all over the place, but I keep coming back to the basics of testing one-on-one skills in communication. If you can't explain to people what you're doing or went wrong then your kind about a standstill there even if you are the best person in world at finding issues...

if you cannot explain them Then you're done. That's your block. So I keep falling back to those kind of basic human skills and the rudimentary testing skills that i think we forget sometimes when We've been doing this for ten fifteen twenty years. Yeah, yeah well what do You mean with the testing?

Oh one-on-one What are Your basics you want To see from a tester? I Think there's A lot Of things that We tend to Take For granted and that sometimes you forget about because I've always just done it. If I'm training somebody new or implementing in AI, I can't assume that they know how to find an edge case or that a user is probably at some point going to hit the enter key five hundred times because they're frustrated with their internet for those random things that as a tester do automatically.

but when someone says Well, why would you even test that? Why does that matter?" That's the basis of what we do. It is making sure things are functional and our users are happy getting their experience as a result they expect because it could have been best software on the planet.

but if not your user thought this was going to be done...that still isn't a problem! So I think falling back to those skills and not getting too high up in the technical or business needs, remembering that negative numbers work. Or don't?

I think that's also a thing we have to remember as experienced testers when we talk to juniors or other people in the project, which is somethings are for us so clear. But some people aren't aware of all these methods and thinking about what can go wrong with an input field but they're doing this twenty years now. So it's our DNA And absolutely, it's just that second nature. Yeah yeah okay now but we cannot think other people have that too.

so we have to talk about this. Absolutely and I think the things i found with the shift towards AI is its great in finding these use cases you feed-in requirements and thats great! But it misses some of stuff really obvious for someone who has been doing this a while. It's those moments of going, this is great.

But what happens if I copy and paste more in peace into this field? Is it gonna break stuff? Our tools aren't made to think that creatively. so we have to do that as part of our own skills and conversations and questioning things.

When we come to the other part, like you say. We have to talk about what are doing that people understand in testing and quality parts. How can learn it? I think i've learned just by being open to correction Being humble...

I know im very good at what do but Im not very good explaining this to others. So when people would be easier if they sent me a video Okay, I can do that. Right? If you write down every single step pretend like i've never seen this software before and write Down Every Single Step great!

I Can Do That. so being open to those changes when people say This doesn't work for me Because I don't know that necessarily any of us are bad at communicating it's more Communication Styles. I'm a very visual person right. show Me the screenshot.

Show me The video. that's More Helpful To Me Than A perfectly written step-by-step that I can't follow. Yeah, yeah. So it also always depends on the audience who i'm talking to.

And of course if you're talking To a dev That you've worked with for ten years versus uh c suite Who maybe just joined your team Right? You have to approach those things differently and ask...I like to Ask right up front what helps you understand What am doing What is your stake in this and what you need? Because if they don't care how many bugs I found before release, then i'm not going to tell them that.

But If I can wave a great big red flag And say remember How You Are Really Concerned About Your Users Not Being Able To Do Whatever Well Guess What I Found. Yeah One one critical part is when we talk to a two manager And they don't really understand what? We are doing and say, okay You just cost me lot of money here sitting there finding some bucks or something like that. What you're doing there the whole time.

Do you have any any arguments or any? Shifts that we can give as from the testers perspective to a manager That he likes us the QA? It's such a double-edged sword when I look at it, because if you're doing your job really well. You are preventing issues and then becomes this weird QA roller coaster that we see all the time of oh everything is going smoothly!

everything starts going really badly, right? So I think for me one of the things. that's been most important is staying at the forefront of my devs minds. Not necessarily the managers but making sure the devs know that i am a resource they can come to be and say okay i've got these use cases.

what am i missing? because Then you just become a part of the conversation. I've had teams that have looked around and gone, hold on if we're grooming why isn't Tara here? She has good insight.

she's helped me with this feature And so being open to those conversations Being at the table asking If You Can Go To The Table Yeah i would love to know more about the features That Are Upcoming. can i join you? are really great ways for me to start those relationships because, to me that's what they are. They're relationships right?

You have to build that trust to say I'm not here just to take up a seat or be the bad guy and tell you what your doing wrong...I am here because i really care about our product-i believe in it! And i want out users as much faith into us as we do so..what can i help?"

I think what you said is that trust, it's a very important word nowadays when we talk about all the AI stuff and so too because as quality. people are now dealing with a lot of white co-pilot coded stuff. Quality unknown! And we have...

We're the ones who give back trust into this stuff while testing software. Yes. Yeah, I think trust for me has always been the foundation of what i do. it For me The user is always been number one stakeholders Number two because you can have the best software on the planet.

But if It's not What your users are asking? For and what they need it to Do Then They're Not going To use it And They're not Gonna Care. And I saw that shift. It was so hesitant to start adopting AI myself because I saw so many flaws in it, and you really do have to spend time with it.

You really do Have to build That trust and say i know where the potholes are. Let me show them To you So we can avoid Them. let's Navigate around them and then We Can fix them and Figuring out what? I think what you can't is probably more important.

We're all assumed that, everybody has good intentions and don't really know the AI has intentions but we'll have good intention. so we want to do a good job And we wanna do it quickly But that means some things get lost So we've gotta take extra care To make sure those rudimentary boxes are checked. Trust goes away that quickly. Yeah, that's where it goes away very fast but to build it up.

It's not so if its a long process. Yeah yeah especially once it's been broken because I've been burned before. That's true. On the AI side, we have another thing that I think when we use AI as a support for us testing or something.

We also to gain our skill of critical thinking about what is output? How does it help us? Is really correct because all sounds so smooth but comes out there! What's your experience with this skill?!

So I love to look at AI through the lens of it's toxically positive, right? Everything you say to it will go. You're right! That's amazing.

Thank you for pointing that out Even if YOU are dead wrong And i find that really frustrating. so...I find myself doing extra research sometimes To make sure that I know what im talking about. It gets great to have AI kick out those test cases or analyze our requirements, anything like that.

But if I don't really know my business and I don' t really know by product ,I d? nt when it's making stuff up . So i'm spending more time having this conversations going. okay This is what I came up with And this was GPT kicked-out When we did the analysis.

What am I missing? This doesn't sound quite right, but i don't know enough about it. Tell me more." And so if...

I find myself shifting more into like root cause analysis rather than the actual testing side of things. now If that makes sense. Yeah That's an interesting point. a few I think It is good way to deal with that.

I've always been a big fan of kind-of the Big Picture. One those people that if i don't understand how it impacts other systems or connects with my user, then I don't know what to look for...I have to see the whole picture! It's like you make sure program is supposed draw circle draws a circle?

That's great but why does somebody need a circle?! What if they're asking for a square?? And so those are the things that I find myself more and having more time to go find out with AI. But it also means, Yeah, that's fast.

one assumption can snowball so quickly. yeah That's true. That's too. we have to to reflect more and to review More.

what? We have on the table now because it sounds good But it doesn't have to be good with what comes out there here. Yeah And its. I would you also say i think It's a very important thing.

is he said that your connect to the user. So yesterday had talk with QA guy from a startup and they are very near to the end user because. They need their feedback from the user really for there, for the application or service. that I think when i look at my clients sometimes big companies with huge software landscape uh...

they're not even knowing for whom day of doing this stuff they are developing there and what is. What is the idea behind that? And I think this is so important to make a good job. So yeah, we've seen the downfall of several companies that have kind of lost touch with their user base.

Adobe right Photoshop was for years The tip top of the market. you didn't even think about anything else. it became household name and now people are okay It does its job. The users weren't getting what they wanted.

Yeah, maybe that's a normal way because companies get growing and they're getting bigger. And so the gap is going to grow too. So I think we are often the advocate for our users. We can raise the flag and say okay...

I have something i don't really usefull One of the things that I tell people to cut their QA teams is, That means your users are first line-of-defense. Because they will find bugs! They'll find bugs we miss all the time! Do you want them to find ALL the issues?

They're not going. be happy! And once you've broken trust... Hard to get back.

That's a good argument, I would note it down for me from my next even when the manager says okay well we have to get rid of the QA team. Well i use My mom as perfect example because her biggest frustration in life is logging into Her bank. It's little small town Bank and they Have A beautiful Website And Logging In Is a Nightmare Process. Even if you like I know my password.

It's saved in a password keeper And it's like, are you sure? You're you do really know your passwords. maybe we should reset it every time. To the point where why don't you change banks?

yeah Yeah Your users are going to get frustrated. Yeah, yeah that's so true. I because last year i changed the bank Because of the web e-banking not because of the password because The website. when you log in they use elements and a style which was known from the beginning Of the two thousanders.

And uh They have did their refresh two years ago but it looks Nearly the same and it's where usability is from hell. And so I said, okay that's not The way i want to work. i have To deal with my bank account every two days? When It's not that useful for me i Have to change the bank and take another one which has a better app and A better web page.

yeah Absolutely it makes your life easier. and if One person would've just Said let Me pretend to be a user For a second And go through the process they would have gone, what is happening here? Yeah. That's so true yeah but for one person just acting as that advocate.

But being the advocate also needs this skill to be...to have some courage to stand up and speak in a meeting and say okay This isn't right way And I think mainstream nowadays to stand up and raise your voice, say it's not the way we should do in a company. It is my view of what was your experience with that? Oh!

Now I absolutely agree. one thing i keep hearing over-and-over in conversations... We have these toxic positivity cultures where everything went so fast and smooth except, but what about all those bugs I logged? And they just live on the backlog and the back log is hundreds of bugs long.

But yay we did a good job! And i hear it over and over again. It takes a certain amount of bravery to be able to stand up... but comes back with communication skills being able say things.

it's really hard to tell somebody that they're not doing a good job, because that's a horrible thing to say. It's not that you are not doing the right job but I found this thing we can improve upon and learning how to reframe so our users will have a horrible time is what do i help make smoother? Did you notice? Everything for me has become such an iterative process, particularly with as fast as we're moving with AI and DevOps.

All of the things that make us go faster and faster every day." Okay? We have version one. it's great I love that we got it out.

what do you need to make a better?" That doesn't mean shoving new features in it. Yeah yeah sometimes let's fix that typo real quick. And I think what you say is totally true that we have to learn how.

I think you also said in the beginning, is that we have to talk our audience into company. That they can take what we say and if we have re-frame it... In a best way ... We re-framed them with their idea but not ours!

It's a little back levy. We lose so much of our communication when we're not face-to-face, and we don't have facial expressions in body gestures. So if you're sending somebody a message over Slack You can sound like a really mean terse horrible person And be like. that's not what I meant at all.

Uh i know several people that Use chat dpt as a filter and say Tell me what this tone sounds like because i'm gonna send it to my boss, and I don't want to sound horrible. So that if you're one of those people, they can't pick the right words and always comes across as slightly brash and rude. Maybe that's a good option. Reaching out to a friend who is just really good at that stuff saying what does this sound okay?

If I just sent this to you am i really mean? do I need more coffee? because that filtering is a skill to learn. I don't think any of us just, well probably a few of us actually just magically have it but vary there if you in far between right?

It's a learned skill to figure out how say something particularly when your straight text. Yeah that's true yeah and its good idea too. use AI for this challenge? tone of voice or how does it fit to the audience?

I think that's a very good usage of AI. If you stay a little bit authentic in this... Yeah, yeah! I don't ever want to use AI to the point where i lose my voice right..

I have certain intonations and certain phrases that I use all the time and pauses that put in but never wanna loose that. But that little gut check of tell me what the tone is and if it comes back And says well, this was kind of confrontational you go. Okay? I need to rewrite that.

Yeah That's true. yeah i have such a hard time with that loss Of interpersonal communications when i'm just overtaxed. i've gotten told that I tend to use a lot of emojis and double check myself in that way as well. That's good inspiration, we can think about our communication skill there too.

when look at the next five years do you thing testing will change? That much that is now predicted by all? we there use AI and it will replace us, do you think? Will our role completely change?

in which direction. If I had to put money on it... it's going be a shift like what we saw with test automation. It was supposed end manual testing.

We were never gonna have to do the horrible slog ever again. But then we found out that it was really necessary to get hands on your product and actually use it, and do those exploratory moments. And automation freed up time for that. I put my bunny in that bucket.

I think AI is going to help us speed-up automation identify things We need to run through manually but those manual skills is going to be so important. As long as you've got people using your software and not just other software, there's gonna be human error in it and you have to have human hands on it. So I think we'll see another bucket And maybe a shift towards specialized AI testers and AI driven testing But i don't think will ever completely get rid of the manual tester and the estets.

We've eliminated users that are human. Yeah, could be a good way. and how do you think when I tested today thinks about his or her career in the next years? And now here's this episode wants to have tip on what experience and in my personality.

What do you, what would you recommend that? For me it's been about following... This is gonna sound so cliche! It's about following my passion.

I wanted to be a dev. i accidentally became a qa turns out. i'm really good at finding those weird cases of like. well what happens if i do hit enter fifty times?

oops i broke the database. But that means because I like the Dev work, a specialty in API test automation. It's all back-in and strictly code. That is my happy place.

but as I explored more things also found out have really strong passion for UX and accessibility. so meant to go learn that somewhere along lines became Jack of all trades master none. I get to play with new tools all the time, and i get to explore new things. And I get have these conversations!

Um...I know people that've gotten into this field are going, ''I want absolutely nothing to do with it.'' ''I'm very happy doing exploratory testing.'' ''Look at what I can do!''

''Looks at the people who helped me.'' That's their happy place. So if you find an explorer around until something is there like, This Is What I Love To Do. There's a Place For That.

I think there's always going to be a place for somebody who is strictly manual testing or someone like, I have done nothing all day but write AI prompts and look at the work you've been doing. Love that! That your happy place." There was this spot for it so talking with community members saying show me what new tool we're playing.

maybe that's the thing which clicks on us when they say You never really know until you try, but I think there's a spot for everybody out There and there's the spot. I mean quality is everybody's responsibility. So even sales people that i know That are like they get really excited when they're The ones that found the bug right? I was showing off this to the client.

look what I've found. There's that moment For Everybody Where it's kind of neat And you Kind Of Feel Like discovered gold, and you can't wait to see what comes of it. So find that moment where you've got your hidden treasure." And I think...

What you said is so true! You cannot find it by thinking about it. You have to try out because this passion has a feeling when One of the things I love about teaching is watching my students find that when, when the light bulb goes off and they get really excited. And you can see the endorphins just kind of take over in there super happy and excited.

look at what i did like. okay They're hooked, they found their moment. Yeah that's great. yeah hopefully a lot of people will get there too and find their passion also in the QA testing area.

but if you are finding yourself going oh my gosh I don't want to go work tomorrow because i can do one more manual test. try something new see if your boss lets you automate it. Yeah, I think we have one benefit of all this QA testing stuff. It's that there is a lot of things we can do in there and so different activities.

We can deal with it without the testing and qa stuff from automation From test data generation now with AI Now With All The Different Test Levels And Test Types Non-functional Things. So There Is A Lot Of Things We Can Choose From. Oh my gosh, yes. And for all the people that are at the forefront of figuring out how to test agents and think on twelve different dimensions instead of Yes or No...

It's a skill! I love you have it because i'm getting there. Yeah yeah. So I think there is new stuff coming up every day.

one these days we'll have somebody That writes a whole new book that teaches us how to do something and it might be you. Who knows? Yeah, yeah...that's true!

Great, Tara. I see the time is already running and we're...I think we have to discuss later on in another episode too! And like it really that we get now in touch and talked about these topics.

Maybe some near the Eurostar conference. We'll be seeing person. maybe we can do an episode there too? We will see.

It was a real pleasure talking to you after all the weeks of dealing with our meeting today. So thank you very much that you are now part of this show and I hope you enjoyed it too, looking forward! Thank you so much for having me. i feel like we could do this one hundred times not cover half what we want to talk about but...

I'm so glad I got to finally sit down. Yeah, thank you very much. Have a good time!